


tfw aa sux

by fortunate



Category: The Boys (TV 2019)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcoholics Anonymous, Gen, Queen Maeve is a softie, Queen Maeve-Centric, References to Addiction, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27054853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunate/pseuds/fortunate
Summary: Vought International cares about YOU, before helping others, you need to help yourself. This is why, starting next Saturday, you are invited to our super-exclusive, Substance Abuse Support group!___________________________Vought starts an AA group, Maeve enjoys it as much as you'd expect.
Relationships: Elena/Queen Maeve (The Boys), No Romantic Relationship(s), Queen Maeve | Maggie Shaw & A-Train | Reggie Franklin
Kudos: 25





	tfw aa sux

AA Meetings  _ suck _ . 

At first they suck because everyone’s so fucking  _ nice _ about you being a piece of shit. Pretending that they will make you not be a piece of shit. Pretending your addiction is the single reason you suck. 

“Those are some  _ strong feelings,  _ Mea- Maggie.” The counselor, Betty, says, her voice is so  _ soft _ and strangely  _ nurturing _ . And Maggie hates it, because it’s so  _ motherly _ . But if she says that, they’ll want to talk about her mother, and then she’ll just have to find a bullet hard enough for a bulletproof skull. 

She’s not here to be comforted, she’s here because it was prescribed in the US-Army-Mandated Psych Evaluation Mr. Edgar couldn’t negotiate them out of. Apparently, if you practiced mindfulness and sat in a circle talking about your feelings. you wouldn’t feel bad about killing people. Or you would be okay when you were ordered to kill people. Whatever. 

“It’s not my first rodeo.” Maggie says. She’s being polite, even in her bluntness. She doesn’t need to. This is a special group, made up exclusively of Vought-certified heroes. But she’s the only member of The Seven who was asked to sign up. She’s probably the only  _ loser _ who went to a real psychiatrist, there’s no way Starlight doesn’t smoke a blunt before going to sleep. It doesn’t matter, though. She’ll stop coming after her four prescribed sessions are done. 

“So you  _ have _ recognized the problem before, and you  _ have _ worked against it before. Tell me, Maggie,” Hearing her  _ real _ name was startling enough. It created a false illusion of  _ closeness _ to this group of heroes. She hated it. “Why do you keep coming back to this?”

Maggie doesn’t know how to respond. Maeve fakes a laugh, stands up to get more watered-down coffee, and pretends she’s not listening to the hero they move on to.

* * *

AA Meetings continue to suck, then they don’t so much. Five sessions pass, but Maeve has already gotten used to going, so she doesn’t  _ stop _ . She gives her skeptical Nitzchean input once in a while. And some semi-supportive, maybe-playful input after some more sessions. She starts bringing her own coffee, iced, of course. 

  
Then, A-Train wakes up. No Psych-Eval is needed before he’s signed up. 

After a while, the meetings suck because the new guy is a skeptical dick that won’t shut up about how AA Meetings  _ suck _ . Which makes Maggie wonder if she really was  _ that _ annoying. But whatever. The point is that she was never  _ that _ awful, even if the rest of the guys insist that’s not the case. If anything, A-Train (her brain refuses to call him  _ Reggie _ ) is  _ nicer _ about sucking than her. 

Bullshit. But okay. 

“I don’t think you have to worry about failing so much.” Maggie says, during a long silence that settles when A-Train tells a little sob-story about his time in the Teenage Kix. “At least not anymore.”

And she means it. Seriously. Out of all members of The Seven, A-Train is the one with the most cultural impact among millennials. A-Train halloween costumes have been the top-selling among children for three years. The Teenage Kix web series with Jayden Smith as A-Train was the first youtube original nominated for an Emmy. A sound effect of “Reggie” running was turned into a sample used in the latest viral tiktok. If Vought fell, A-Train could rise. 

A-Train looks at her, disbelieving. With a look that calls her out for speaking from a privileged position, but before he can speak his mind, Bettie interrupts. 

“Maggie, we’ve talked about invalidating others before.”

“Sorry.” Maggie replies, not at all apologetic. The next person speaks.

* * *

After a while, they suck because the doughnuts are  _ terrible _ and the chairs are  _ hard, _ something no one had noticed at first. But the sessions were shorter when no one liked eachother, so that hadn’t been a problem. She’s also being dissuaded from complaining too much. 

Not by the counselor, but by her fellow members, who have started to tease her on how  _ ridiculous _ her hero name is. 

In Maggie’s defense, she picked it at fifteen. The “Queen Maeve” Persona wasn’t supposed to last this long. 

“Fuck you guys. These are the only carbs I’ve managed to sneak into my Keto diet. The lack of  _ sugar _ is tricking my brain into thinking this tastes  _ okay.” _

“Then what’re you complaining for?” Reggie laughs. Maggie  _ needs _ to complain about  _ something _ , otherwise, she’s enjoying therapy. 

It’s kind of working, by the way. She hasn’t gone on patrol drunk in  _ months _ . Well, two months. So that’s something. 

Even now, when things with Elena are… Not great. 

Despite how  _ safe _ group therapy makes her  _ feel _ , she knows better than to tell them what’s  _ really _ on her mind. Why she  _ really _ drinks. She has a  _ billion _ NDA agreements she can’t break, and then some stuff too shitty to put on paper. 

  
She knows the same is true for A-Train. But he still gives them half-truths. Enough for her to find a few puzzle pieces.

The first is that he dated Popclaw, before he was in the Seven. That means he kept on seeing her, after. That means his overdose probably had to do with her dying. His problems tied back to Homelander, just like hers. 

Which didn’t make it any less lonely. And didn’t make her any less angry.

“Isn’t this thing just about  _ complaining _ , anyway? What if I drank because I hate chairs? Have you ever tried sitting while wearing metal miniskirts that happens to  _ pinch? _ Have you ever bitten into a stale doughnut and thought “ _ tasty!”” _ Maggie jokes. 

Maybe she should get Reggie to kill Homelander with her. And Starlight. She was pretty strong. If she managed to hold his head she could probably blind him with her light beams long enough. If Reggie carried Maeve towards him while he was secured in place, they could probably run through him, like he did Starlight’s Boyfriend’s Wife or something. (You can’t expect Maeve to keep up with the Soap Opera Vought had become.) 

Noir would probably be needed, too. But Maeve didn’t trust him not to backstab them, so she’d probably have to think this through first. 

* * *

A-Train starts stealing doughnuts from The Seven’s interns. Who somehow scored better ones. He’s  _ really _ bummed out about leaving The Seven. He’s trying not to let the rest of the therapy group know.

They figure it out, anyway.

It kind of sucks, honestly. It makes her  _ killing Homelander _ plan harder, too. But he manages to give her an idea when he mentions something about The Deep. 

While Betty gives him a long talk about not joining cults, Maggie thinks of ways to get Homelander off her back even without the physical power to kill him. 

* * *

AA meetings  _ suck _ when you get there pretending not to be hungover, and then you puke on the bathroom and the only girl who laughed at your jokes is so disappointed she cries and everyone tells you it’s okay but you feel like it won’t be, because Starlight is gone and so is Elena and so is Reggie and you have no reason to fight back, now, because you’re back to being a dick with a useless but stylish armor and mommy issues who never learned how to apologize. 

* * *

AA meetings suck when everything gets better, and you still feel like something is missing. When you’ve kicked a nazi’s teeth in and your goody-two-shoes best friend who doesn’t know she’s your best friend is miraculously alive, and you’re still thirsty for revenge. And you still have nightmares, and the fire isn’t out yet. 

She looks at Reggie as he talks about his first date with Popclaw, and then around the room, and wonders if it will ever get good enough. If she will ever feel  _ whole _ without some sort of sedative. If that will ever happen for the rest of them. 

AA meetings suck when they make you hopeful. Hope is faith’s richer, bitchier sister, another thing she should leave for girls like Starlight or dorks like The Deep. 

But it’s nice, so she might as well keep going. Really, if Betty can listen to eight super narcissists and not quit, she’s got enough talent to be worth waking up at seven on a Saturday to sit in a poorly-heated room. 

She’ll keep saying the meetings suck, even if her smile slips while saying it. 

**Author's Note:**

> In case you were wondering, Ashley is campaigning for her own support group because nursing super children sucks.


End file.
